Norristhorpe Junior & Infant School

At Norristhorpe, our Music Curriculum is designed to engage, motivate and inspire pupils to develop a love of music and their talent as musicians. They will acquire and develop a variety of musical skills relating to the interrelated dimensions of music and build on their knowledge and understanding in these areas. This will give them a more secure, deeper understanding and mastery of musical skills. Pupils will gain a firm understanding of what music is through listening, singing, playing, evaluating, analysing, and composing across a wide variety of historical periods, styles, traditions and musical genres.

At Norristhorpe, we have developed ‘Golden Threads’ which carefully consider the needs of our pupils and what they require to enable them to be successful. In Music, we will develop confident pupils who are resilient when learning musical skills. They will be given opportunities to develop their talents as musicians and take responsibility for performances. This will enable each pupil to increase their self-confidence, creativity and feel proud of their achievements. 

Musical skills are embedded throughout the curriculum via Sing-Up, Musica Kirklees and Charanga, an integrated, practical, exploratory and child-led approach to musical learning, which supports pupil’s learning in music and across other subjects through music. Skills and knowledge are planned progressively, through the interrelated dimensions of music, alongside repetition of skills and concepts to build on prior learning during the pupil’s time at Norristhorpe.

At Norristhorpe J & I School, we deliver a clear and comprehensive scheme of work in line with the National Curriculum through Charanga. Charanga is a scheme of work which offers a topic-based approach to support children’s learning in music. A steady progression plan has been built into Charanga, both within each year and from one year to the next, ensuring consistent musical development. By using Charanga as the basis of a scheme of work, we can ensure that we are fulfilling the aims for musical learning stated in the National Curriculum. Charanga includes many examples of music styles and genres from different times and places. These are explored through the language of music via active listening, performing, improvisation and composing activities, which enable understanding of the context and genre. Charanga provides a classroom-based, participatory and inclusive approach to music learning. Throughout the scheme, children are actively involved in using and developing their singing voices, using body percussion and whole-body actions, and learning to handle and play classroom instruments effectively to create and express their own and others’ music. Through a range of whole class, group and individual activities, children have opportunities to explore sounds, listen actively, compose and perform. Through the musical program Charanga, teachers are able to produce inclusive lessons for all children to access the musical curriculum in a fun and engaging way, further promoting a love of learning. Charanga lessons are planned in sequences to provide children with the opportunities to review, remember, deepen and apply their understanding. This will give them a more secure, deeper understanding and mastery of musical skills.

 In the classroom, children learn how to play a variety of tuned and percussion instruments. Playing various instruments enables children to use a range of methods to create notes, as well as how to read basic music notation. They also learn how to compose, focusing on different dimensions of music, which in turn feeds their understanding when listening, playing, or analysing music. Alongside our curriculum provision for music, pupils also have the opportunity to participate in additional 1:1 music teaching by being offered the opportunity to learn a musical instrument with peripatetic teachers. Pupils also have the opportunity to join the school choir and to participate in a range of performances.

All pupils will benefit from a high-quality music education which engages and inspires them to develop a love of music and their talent as musicians. It will increase their self-confidence, creativity and sense of achievement. As pupils progress, they will develop a growing musical vocabulary that allows them to critically engage with music. Teaching and learning of music is a reflective process for the children as they are given the opportunities to assess themselves and their peers. The children also celebrate their success and skills with their peers and wider audiences.

Children learn musically, both independently and as part of a group, ensuring skills of resilience and teamwork are promoted in Music. Children are enthused and engaged in a wide variety of musical activities. Opportunities to perform outside of school and within our local environment ensure our children understand the significance and place of music within the wider world.

Music enables children to develop an understanding of culture and history, both in relation to children individually, as well as ethnicities from across the world. Children are able to enjoy music in as many ways as they choose – either as listener, creator or performer. Children have the opportunity to discuss and share their own thoughts, opinions and ideas, acknowledging and respecting that these may vary and that this is positive.

Our Music Curriculum is planned to demonstrate progression and build on and embed

current skills. We focus on progression of knowledge and skills in the different musical

components and the teaching of vocabulary also forms part of the units of work.

We measure the impact of our curriculum through the following methods:

• Pupil discussions and interviewing the pupils about their learning (pupil voice).
• Leaning walks and knowledge checks.
• Plickers
• Kahoots
• Annual reporting and tracking of standards across the curriculum.
• Photo and video evidence of the pupils practical learning.
• Use of the assessment tools provided within the Charanga scheme.

Follow this link for a press release about our "sing up day" 

Mr Luby "warming up" our school choir before their performance at Dewsbury Town Hall.

"The Norristhorpe Junior School Choir shared their infectious enjoyment and everyone loved their rendition of ‘Monster Mash’ complete with solos and Transylvanian accents".... reported The Huddersfield Examiner following the performance of our school choir at the Musica Kirklees January Showcase at Dewsbury Town Hall.

Congratulations! Your Silver Sing Up Award has been endorsed by Awards Executive and you've achieved your Silver Award! 

Celebrate your school's singing achievement by downloading your Award Certificate and logos from the Awards Tool now. You will receive your formal Award Certificate in the post within the next few weeks.

Awards Executive gave the following feedback:

To all staff and pupils at Norristhorpe Junior and Infant School, I am delighted to endorse your Silver Sing Up Award, and heartily congratulate the staff and students on this achievement! There is a palpable sense of joy demonstrated throughout your evidence, which made your submission a real pleasure to endorse. Your evidence consistently demonstrates some very hard work and a commitment to singing across the school. You have met the criteria for each award and have achieved your plan. It is clear that your Awards Champion, Gareth Luby, has worked hard to encourage and support you all in your journey to becoming a singing school. You have developed an impressive singing action plan, and have provided some lovely evidence demonstrating good-quality and very enthusiastic singing across all ages, in and out of the classroom. I particularly enjoyed the 'Say Amen' performance - the children clearly love singing it, and what a brilliant way to familiarise them with musical terms. You are clearly here starting to consider the quality of your singing. I was hugely impressed by the efforts you have made to get all pupils and staff 'on board' with your Silver Award, including some excellent staff training - and it was lovely to see the signed Pledge certificate! It's also brilliant to see that all members of the school community are involved in singing, from your SEN groups to the staff choir. It was great to see that singing is reflected in your school development plan. To enable you to keep moving forwards, perhaps in preparation for your Gold Sing Up award, I would now encourage you to: 1) Develop further opportunities for and capture evidence of children leading singing and taking ownership of their singing. 2) Aim to capture more varied evidence of how singing supports topic and curriculum work in class across the school. 3) Further develop the initiative of the singing in the playground. This is a lovely idea and it would be good to see how this progresses. 4) Capture further evidence of SMT actively participating and being involved in singing, perhaps leading assemblies. 5) Develop and create further opportunities for sharing your singing. Perhaps you could organize a collaborative event with other local schools, or a singing workshop day for a class or year group where parents and visitors are invited. 6) Capture evidence to demonstrate a wide and varied repertoire, including songs from around the world. You could invite children and parents in to classes to teach songs in home languages. Also check out the Sing Up website for further resources and ideas. Many congratulation on achieving your Silver Sing Up Award, and I wish you every success with your singing in the future!

Emily Godfree - Sing Up Awards Endorser

NORRISTHORPE SCHOOL CHOIR REMEMBERING JO COX, MP